We were dead before the ship even sank!
by swisstony
Summary: Rated M for swearing. Enjoy.


I sit down

**I am weak and a liar : D Couldn't stay away wish I could cus this rambling rubbish is really terrible: D Awww don't think bad of me…**

**This can be stand alone, but it also slots into my series.**

**If u haven't read that then Mabel is going 2 seem very Mary-Sueish I think that's right way 2 use that term. I'm just a poor writer: D**

**N e way I don't own this…**

**Fingers crossed u will enjoy: D**

**Awww also sorry 4 any typos or spelling errors…**

I sit down.

I sit down in my perfectly ordered living room, in my tidy home surrounded by my trumpets and book marks. I have always liked to collect things and this; this thing sitting in my lap is a new object of fascination, something new to add to my collection.

I slip it out from beneath the thick brown paper sheets it's been wrapped in, and I wait. I just wait, feeling the smooth texture in my hands. How soft it is, how my fingers glide across its silky back; it feels like her. Or at least how I have always imagined she would feel.

I flip it over and I'm suddenly confronted by her face, that face which has haunted me from the moment I first laid my eyes on her. She is not beautiful, only pretty it's a prettiness which has changed and will change with time. Her nose is too big and her eyes are a little too small, more than a little to small. In the image in my hands she has short choppy blonde hair, but the first time I met her she was dark. That is how I like to remember her, as a small naïve dark little thing so precious.

I should start from the beginning I suppose, explain how I first encountered my most engrossing obsession.

I had been working at the Zoo for three years when she appeared. Until that point my life was simple but devolved of any real meaning or feeling. I was also surrounded by idiots. She was not an idiot. Not that she was a clever girl, she wasn't she talked more than she listened and she was interested only be the trivial. But there was something there an intelligence that had only ever required application.

She'd been wearing her school uniform. I still remember it, it's burned itself into my memory. Virginal shinny black patient shoes, a pair of pure white knee high socks, tartan pleated skirt, shirt, jumper, blazer, tie and straw hat. It was a uniform of a good school. She looked lost; she did not belong in this…that place.

I went to her eager to claim her before the others. She'd been with him that terrible man, and I'd realised that it was too late. I'd already lost her I never had the chance.

'_Mrs Gideon.' _That faceless monster had addressed me as if he'd known me.

'_Mrs Gideon, this is my sister Mabel.'_ She was like a bird nervous and fragile; I imagine that like a bird her heart must beat very fast. To hold such a thing…

It was obvious that she was not his sister.

I should have touched her shaken her hand, but I could not I could not bring myself to do such a thing. He touched her though grabbed her tugged her along; there was no care he was too rough.

I was aloof, but however hard I tried I could not take my eyes from her. I watched as that bland imbecile had willing lead her into Bainbridge's office. Fool. He'd been leading that sweet naive lamb to a terrible fate, they'd both been talking and giggling excitedly.

The next time I had seen her she'd been wearing another uniform the Zoo uniform, her hair had been in plaits.

'_Hi, Mrs Gideon.' _It's Vesper I had corrected her; I wanted to hear the way my name sounded on her lips.

'_Oh that is so cool, like the bikes and that drink!'_ Until that moment it had been Vesper as in the evening star, but forever more I would be Vesper as in the bikes and that drink.

After that I looked for her everyday. I invited her to my reptile house but she didn't like snakes. She was honest.

She lived with him in that old run-down keeper's hut, that was no place for such a flower. I would watch them sometimes through the kitchen window; I still don't know what I wanted to see. All I ever saw was two people just living together making tea, he would read while she watched the television; normal things I suppose things I had forgotten. They slept together, I never actually saw them but it was common knowledge that there was only one sleeping bag in that hut. I thought about calling the police it was obvious that she was a run away, that or he had abducted her. I think about it, what he must have done to her to get her to live with him, she genuinely believed he was her brother they never dropped the pretence not for a moment. I tried in vain to get Bainbridge to intervene, but he was useless by then I think he'd wanted her as much as I did.

I started to work later and later leaving my snakes only when I had to, only at the last moment before Graham locked the Zoo up for the night. It only took a couple of weeks a month at most for the honeymoon period to wear thin. They argued I'd listen to them the way most people listen to music, savouring it. She was a drunk; I'd watch her hiding bottles of Vodka and _Jack Daniel's_ in the ape enclosure drinking them down finishing off a new bottle everyday. He, the faceless oblong was oblivious; he was also oblivious to Bainbridge. I should have stopped him, but Dixon Bainbridge was not the sort of man who could be easily stopped. I think his interest in her stemmed mostly from jealousy that and lust, he was jealous of the one she called her brother, jealous of Joey Moose, jealous of the other various young keepers, because she gave them something for free that he could only take by force or fear.

She'd been so young barely fifteen much younger than me, but she had a world of experience that I could never dream of; at that time in my life at least. I suppose conventional society would have called her a whore, excluding Fossil, the kiosk vender Naboo and Graham I don't think there was a single member of the male staff that she hadn't fucked. But I am not conventional society. To me she was a free spirit, and a Zoo was never a place for anything that was meant to be free. Bainbridge crushed her in the end, trapped and caged her. She cried when noone was looking, she cried when she'd have to go to Fossil's office when Fossil would leave and I knew they were alone in there together. It was inevitable what happened in the end. I still wonder why, why she went to my reptile house to do it. It was late and I was leaving; it had been raining, and then I'd heard screaming. I have never heard screaming like that it was horrible it emanated from some dark place deep inside the human soul. When I got there, there was a crowd forming outside my building I fought my way through and that's when I had found them the three of them. The kiosk vender Naboo, her brother and finally her.

'_No, no, no Mabel no…don't do this.' _Her 'brother' who's face and name I can never for the life of me ever remember no matter how hard I try, was holding her limp body in his arms. She was pale; and there was blood so much blood I never knew a person could bleed like that. Naboo had said something about an ambulance, I ran to her kneeling in her blood letting it soak through the material of my tights and skirt. I did what I could I tried to touch her but he stopped me clutching her selfishly against his chest.

'_She can't die, she can't die. Don't let her die, please.' _He kept repeating over and over again while crying.

'_She can't die, Vince…Vince is coming to the Zoo he's going to live with us, she likes Vince…she can't die; Vince is coming.'_ Vince was the sweet boy who he replaced her with. He had the softest hair, he was such a special boy.

She didn't die, but she did escape the Zoo she never came back and it was years before I ever saw her again. She ran into me in the street, but even then I never had the chance to touch her; she just brushed against me and I felt the warm contours of her young feminine form.

'_Mrs Gideon? Vesper Gideon, that is you.'_ She'd been even more beautiful than I remembered; it had been raining then as well. Her hair had still been long and dark. We talked for a few moments about nothing and then she'd asked about her 'brother' and Vince. I thought about not telling her where they were, but I couldn't do that to her. I still remember the smile that she flashed me I treasure it, because it was from her to me, only me.

I forgot about my obsession for a few years, I got married again and then divorced again. I moved, I changed jobs I still work with snakes just now I do it in a real Zoo.

I am happy, but I'm not fulfilled I wonder if I'm one of those people who is ever fulfilled.

I thought she had died. I assumed she had, girls like her don't make old bones. But then I opened the first page of my _Jazz fanciers weekly_, and she'd been there staring back at me through the pages; it was her. So maybe it was the boy Vince, who had died; yes now I'm certain of that. Boys like him tend to not live much longer than their female counterparts. They all out live their usefulness in the end, and their sell-by dates.

I went to see her perform live at Fossil odious little night club. Her body beguiles, she's petite and skinny but her voice is something else. It's a natural instrument for the medium of Jazz. She's got this brooding intensity, it's smoky and sensual. It's strange seeing her all grown up she must be in her late twenties by now. Her naïveté is gone; as is the spark in the back of her eye her gaze is world weary, she's seen things a girl like her should never see. She's still a mess; she needs someone to look after her. There was a time when I thought I could have done that; but I know I'm not suitable for that role because I'd never know weather I wanted to be her Mother or her lover. She inspires a strange maternal feeling inside of me; I have never wanted any children and yet I suppose deep down I must.

I glance down at her face once again. I tracked her progress in the musical world it was a subconscious thing at first, but now I want to posses her posses these creations of her's. The record in my hands is the closet I will ever be to her, to touching her to having any part of her in my life.

I savour it.


End file.
